Damaged headphone plug

[Guest]

Hello,
i was using my ipod headphones when the sound suddenly cut out. for some reason i now have to have the plug in the exact right position when before i only had to put it in
i cant even use it in my pocket
is there any thing i can do?

 

[anwaypasible]

when you plug in the headphones, there is a tab that presses up against the jack.
if you bend those tabs, you will have to hold the jack so it is touching those tabs.

take it apart and unsolder the headphone jack.. buy a new one and solder it in place.

 

[jaguarskx]

As harsh as this may sound...

It is a good thing that your ipod headphones crapped out you. Now you actually have an opportunity to buy a decent set of headphones so that the music will sound better.

 

[anwaypasible]

the person would have to switch to .WAV or .FLAC files to fully enjoy a headphone upgrade.

anyways.. double check your headphones in something else to make sure its not the headphones.

 

[jaguarskx]

No. That is incorrect. Better quality headphones will make music files in general sound better than if listened to with crappy headphones. Bad headphones with shallow or loose base makes music sound rather hallow and "watery". Bad tweeters or highs will make music music sound rather harsh and tinny.

While uncompressed WAV file sounds the best it also takes about 10MB of storage per minute. Lossless codecs likes FLAC and APE are great to maintain the same quality as WAV files but at roughly 5MB per minute. But not all music players support those formats.

Sound quality depends on:

1. The quality of the source material.
2. The codec used to encode the music (source material)
3. The quality of the digital sound processing circuity in the music player.
4. The quality of headphones used to listen to the music.

 

[anwaypasible]

well you are saying the headphones in use are hardly worth 5 cents.
i dont put my ears to headphones and follow the economy.
i know the audio industry is tough.
i was assuming the headphones used were decent enough to hear a difference between an .mp3 and a .flac file.

you are stating that the headphones are so bad that no difference can be heard.
and i am calling that sad.

i read a web article once that showed the difference between .mp3 and .flac and (uncompressed) .wav files.

.flac is the same as .wav except that all of the amplitude was smaller.

i really cant find the article again to see if the noise floor was higher in .flac files compared to the uncompressed .wav file.

the .mp3 file had waving lines, while the .wav and .flac were completely straight.

anyways.. you didnt have to tell me 'NO'
the headphone industry needs improvement obviously.

i wonder if they arent upgrading the headphones because the DAC in the mp3 players are junk.

seems like fixing the problem of having a bad file format and a bad digital to analog converter is a must before higher quality headphones can show the difference.

perhaps it is you that has it backwards.
it shouldnt take much to compress all of your CD's into .flac files and use an audio player that supports .flac

doesnt cost a single penny to convert CD's into a better format.
i know the original poster said they are using an mp3 player that doesnt support .flac files.

BUT..
it has been said that you can modify the ipod to play .flac files.

see here:
http/www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=30823
(5 years ago)

and here:
http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPodLinux

and here:
http/lists.xiph.org/pipermail/flac/2005-January/000375.html

and here:
http/mpd.wikia.com/wiki/MusicPlayerDaemonUclinuxBranch

none of this should cost a single cent.
you could be doing this while saving up some money for headphones that sound better.

 

[jaguarskx]

The term "ipod headphones" leads me to assume the person is listening to the original headphones that came with the iPod. Generally speaking, while adequate for listening to music, the default headphones that comes with any music player simply does not allow people to full enjoy music since they are relatively cheap in terms of over audio fidelity.

you are stating that the headphones are so bad that no difference can be heard.
and i am calling that sad.

No. I am saying that better headphones can help improve overall quality regardless of the audio format. Of course FLAC or APE will sound better than MP3 or WMA.

While uncompressed WAV file sounds the best it also takes about 10MB of storage per minute. Lossless codecs likes FLAC and APE are great to maintain the same quality as WAV files but at roughly 5MB per minute. But not all music players support those formats.

I am merely stating FLAC files are relatively large in comparison to other lossy type codecs like MP3 and WMA so most people tend not to use FLAC (or APE), especially since most players do not support those formats. Most people I know loves using lossy codecs like MP3 because they can fit all or most of their music collection in a single device (assuming the capacity is large enough).

For the record, most of my music are encoded to FLAC format especially my classical and soundtrack collection. Still have some music that I encoded to OGG pre-2005 that I have to go back to the source to encode to FLAC. The sole reason why I purchased my Cowon S9 32GB was that it supports FLAC, and the fact it was and still is one of the best audio players in the market for audio fidelity.


Apple has their own proprietary version of FLAC for lossless audio, it's called ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec). Therefore, it is not absolutely necessary to mod an iPod to use FLAC.

 

[anwaypasible]

No. I am saying that better headphones can help improve overall quality regardless of the audio format. Of course FLAC or APE will sound better than MP3 or WMA.

that should be a comma after the 'no'
using a period for chosen punctuation is abusive.
as a matter of fact, using a period is for discrediting my judgement.
you have the right to speak your intentions, but belittling my intelligence isnt very nice.

anyways..
i agree, headphones are capable of producing vivid details.. and bad headphones dont do the song justice.
the entire electronics economy is in a state of upgrade.
some 'upgrades' are really worse than what they are replacing.

we cant force people to buy better hardware unless we flood the consumer market with higher quality.

i would go as far as saying, you attacked the original poster and not the topic.
the post says that the headphone jack is malfunctioning, not the actual headphones.

neither one of us should take pride in steering the thread off topic talking about sound quality improvements.
the pins inside the jack are bent if the listener has to position the plug a certain way in the jack.. otherwise all that needed to be done is simply wiggle the cord so that there is connectivity (which sometimes isnt simple )

as long as the original poster checks that the headphones work fine in a different headphone jack.. the only options are to sell the ipod as broken, replace the headphone jack themselves, or pay for someone to solder in a new headphone jack.
using any kind of conductive gel is messy and has the potential to short circuit the headphone jack.

** and after looking more into the topic of headphone jack replacement **
it looks like there is an alternative option.
there are replacement headphone jacks soldered onto a ribbon cable with stock plastic surrounding the headphone jack.
i do not know how easy it is to remove that plastic and solder in a new jack onto the ribbon assembly.
but if it can be built.. it can probably be disassembled.
if there are hooks that break during the disassembly process, you will have to replace those hooks with glue.

maybe the headphone jack has proprietary pin holes and you have to purchase the ribbon assembly.
it changes the cost of repair from less than a dollar to about $10

i am wondering if we are more stressed than the original poster!

 

[jaguarskx]

that should be a comma after the 'no'
using a period for chosen punctuation is abusive.
as a matter of fact, using a period is for discrediting my judgement.
you have the right to speak your intentions, but belittling my intelligence isnt very nice.

Not my intention. I just tend to use a combination of long and short sentences from time to time. I didn't mean to offend you.

Let's just allow the original poster to respond with additional information.